Oct, 2010 – Google Chrome, Safari Share Up; Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera – Down

By | November 3, 2010 | 44 Comments

Oct, 2010 - Google Chrome, Safari Share Up; Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera - Down

As we enter November, it’s time to yet again, check the browser market share numbers.

It looks like Internet Explorer 9 Beta release did not help at all, as IE market share went down from 59.65% to 59.18% (0.47 point decrease).

Firefox market share is also on the chopping block. It has decreased by 0.1 point, going down from 22.96% to 22.86%. That’s the lowest number this year.

Google Chrome on the other hand is doing really well, this time its market share went up by a massive 0.52 point, from 7.98% to 8.50%.

With the increasing popularity of Apple devices, Safari share is on the rise as well, up from 5.27% to 5.36% (0.09 point increase).

Opera browser struggled to increase the market share, as it reached June, 2010 levels, down from 2.39% to 2.29% (0.1 point decrease).

Thanks to Hitslink.


About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • Ichann

    Opera – Too little extensions, too late. , slow (why would you make history search to 1?) , uses far too much memory , mean and above all shit marketing (Where are the ads? why do people think about the Opera singing when I say I use Opera? – You simply do not exist to many people.)- I wonder if that has to do something with the decrease

    Firefox is dying. :) Chrome is the next Firefox :) (I like spies)

    Safari is horrible (Does not deserve that)

    And finally MS is losing some dominance.

    Isn’t it nice when stuff just work out.

    • Geek

      obvious troll is obvious

      • Ichann

        Shove your meme up your ass.

        If you do not have anything constructive to say then do not bother using your little fingers and typing your little message.

        • Geek

          Why should i say anything constructive if you just troll troll troll :D Too much memory? Opera is the most efficient browser at the moment
          “http://www.betanews.com/article/Firefox-in-the-dust-Opera-poised-to-reclaim-browser-performance-lead/1286824681/2″
          Slow? The smallest installer. Top2 in performance.
          Shit marketing? You mean like you can tweet from FF beta page after the download FF beta?

          • Ichann

            Are you on crack buddy? One your link does not work. Two: search the damn definition of a troll then come back to me.

            Unlike you fanboy, you do not need to suck c0ck of one company. It is not efficient at memory. Ask anyone.

            Small file size != top performance. Opera is slow at pulling up pages (not rendering). They would benefit from some DNS pref-etching. No! The default settings for networking is not going to cut it. Why does it have such a big default network connection?

            If you follow snapshots, they even had a thing to test how long Opera takes to fricken start. Search the forums go on. type memory and read all the posts.

            You mean like you can tweet from FF beta page after the download FF beta?

            obvious retard is obvious.

    • Hack69

      Yo!

      But you know. The Opera have the most stable user comunity, compare to others, so they probably don’t need any ad (but i see some of them on this site, so…). The extension fetish isn’t solve the makrket share “problem”, because really just few people need extensions. What needs Opera? Continue this way as usual, because the freeware segment isn’t good for the for-profit firm like Opera ASA, so the must face to the mobile operators (da real source of money) and factories like Nintendo, Toshiba and so (OH YEAH, MOOAAR MONEY!!!). You should ask what about the user who don’t give money or give via Google, but it’s only helps on the Desktop version in da real life, but it’s unreliable in the future because they develop the Chrome (but who the hell wants grab the Opera’s 2% from them who the most experienced users on the ground (usually).

      The Safari is okay because they give some cool eyecandy and fast as the hrome (or the Chrome fast as the Safari because the Webkit is mainly developed by the Apple and some random firm like Nokia from the scratch.

      The Chrome probably will be the new Firefox, but what will be later the real Firefox? Chrome XD

      They now grab from the IE and FF the market share so if they can change (looks like the IE can) the Chrome probably get some problems with growing in the future, so probably the FF is in relatively in save.

      Bye-Bee!

      • nvm

        I have to agree with him that Chrome is kicking the ass of the other browsers, but the fact is that Opera is growing.

        He’s just trolling, though.

        • Ichann

          Can you please answer how ” I am trolling”?

          What I have said is all correct. Nothing has been taken out of context.

          I am browser neutral. Maybe some people should learn to accept criticism from others. Denying that this software has no problems means that they cannot move forward.

          Why has Opera suddenly started support for extensions? Because they knew all along that this was the correct way forward. Why haven’t they implemented it sooner? You need to know that Opera has a big ego that needs constant satisfaction. They are a pioneer after all and having extensions not being developed by them is like a nice middle finger to them. They do deserve it though.

          Devs have not been listening to people. Why the hell does it have a bug tracker if the bugs take ages to fix. Priority isn’t too high? Too lazy? BUSY INTRODUCING SOME USELESS FEATURES?

          I really would like to see this browser grow and succeed. I give the same slack to Firefox. You people need to realize that with any business, companies need rivals. They drive each other to innovation.

          It will be a great loss if any of the big browser developers abandons their software.

          • nvm

            Wow, the fanboy is playing psychologist. Maybe you should stick to your area of expertise, which is trolling.

            Opera is a company. As a company, decisions are made based on what their strategy is. You are childish enough to think that a company with more than 700 employees worldwide has some kind of collective pride, and therefore refuse to implement something? What an utterly bizarre and pathetic claim.

            In case you didn’t realize it, Opera is a publicly traded company, which means that the management answers to the board, which answers to the share holders. The share holders don’t care about pride. They care about the company making money.

            And those so-called “useless features”, by which I’m assuming that you are referring things like widgets, are making the company millions of dollars from huge contracts.

            You need to step out of the play ground, and into the real world. Companies with several hundred employees worldwide don’t have pride. They have a drive to make money.

          • Ichann

            Huh. Your arrogance is blinding you good sir.

            You assume wrong. I phrased it deliberateely like that to see how you will respond.

            Fanboy? To what?

            They have missed the market. Thus shares a low. For someone that knows soo much about busines (and in every post trries to flaunt his work ethic) you sure are cluesless.

            The day you admit that you are a fanboy, is the day I admit I’m a troll.

            so, WHAT AM I TROLLING again?

            Go on prove me wrong.
            PS: I did psychology. Thank you for the recognition.

          • nvm

            There is no “the market.” There are several of them. The world is a big place, and Opera’s desktop market share reaches 30-50% in some markets. Never mind their global dominance on mobile (which I predict will soon be overtaken by Android, but never mind that).

            Opera can’t double the user base every two years without growing. Even a Firefox fanboy must realize that.

            You did not do psychology. You failed to do so.

    • Dante

      “Opera – Too little extensions, too late”
      Opera have many possibility of extend (one click solution without restart like FX) – buttons, menus, contexts, shortcuts, panels, mouse gestures, userCSS, userJS, Widgets, or Unite applications. With extensions in Opera 11 they put together all existing possibilities (except Unite and Widgets) under new API (better then Chrome).

      “uses far too much memory”
      Try Chrome. One program process and every tab, or stupid extension get own process and memory (+ GoogleUpdate as bonus). Why stupid 30kB Chrome extension for Facebook take more than 6MB of memory (in own process) even you not on Facebook page?
      Firefox have still memory leaks but now is it controlled by Cycle collector and then take some CPU time to clean memory. Try start Peacekeeper and show resource monitor. Every-time when benchmark freeze, Firefox clean memory leak (tested on i5 2.2Ghz processor with 4GB RAM under Windows 7 x64 system).

      “slow”
      Slow like what? Like Firefox? Where one click on navigation button take 0,5s of NOP and then make some funny refresh?
      But I know, isn’t fast as Chrome…

      “all shit marketing ”
      You compare small European company with big Americans like Microsoft (with operating system), Google (with search engine), Apple (operating system and products) and Mozilla (previously Netscape sponsored by AOL and now by Google with more than 50 millions dollars per year)?
      In other side OperaMini is popular than other mobile browsers from mentioned companies.

      • Ichann

        Why must people always bring FF into the equation. It is slow at solving page requests.

        “Opera small company – no money for advertising”

        And whos fault is that? If they want to be taken seriously, then they need to think of a way to be know to consumers.

        Yes I do not like the multi process nature of chrome (try chrome plus) Opera leaks memory. Period. 1GB. What is that. Ohh no. Opera uses your memory blah blah. Tell it to someone who does not like efficient code.

        Which new users has any idea that Opera’s scripts, blocking, unite exist? If it was so extensible than why are there extensions so late into they game? Why? They need a central place for all the scripts, widgets and what not to live.

        Opera fans. Please do not be butt hurt. It is a piece of code. You cannot physically touch it. It is not like I’m insulting your significant other here. Jeez!

        • Dante

          “Which new users has any idea that Opera’s scripts, blocking, unite exist?”
          Which new users has any idea that Firefox’s extensions exist? Menu in FX: Tools > Add-ons > Get add-ons > and what now? Only 33% of FX users uses extensions. Other users do not need it or don`t know about it.
          And what about Internet Explorer?

          Why new Opera users need know about Opera extensions? They find right in Opera mouse gestures, history indexer, speed dial, mail, chat, rss, notes, links, context, menus, buttons, shortcuts, Turbo, Widgets, Unite, zoom, download manager, panels, menus and other features.

          “Opera leaks memory.”
          My normal installed Opera not. I use nearly all features of Opera + about 15 userJS + 3 mails accounts + 5 RSS + 3 chat accounts and Opera use about 350MB of memory.

          • Ichann

            Why must you justify everything with FF? I’m speaking of Opera here. And most people using Opera do not even know that they are there. Search forums.

            Because the dominance of gestures has been huge for many users. Even clueluess users know that firefox has an extension system and shun enything else that does not.

            I am speaking as a general rule. That is your Opera. One instance. There are people complaining that it leaks. 1GB+ Ilve personally had this in snapshot buils sometimes but if 10+ people complain than that is a pretty strong case that Opera leaks memory.

            I believe it has something to do with: Open 30 tabs close rinse and repeat

          • Ichann

            gestures should be extensions.

          • Dante

            “I am speaking as a general rule. That is your Opera. One instance. There are people complaining that it leaks. 1GB+ Ilve personally had this in snapshot buils sometimes but if 10+ people complain than that is a pretty strong case that Opera leaks memory.”
            I have installed more versions of Opera for users support and I someone have problems with the memory that only reset or change some setting (history, indexing, sessions, icons…) and it reduce memory use.
            When I read other forums that main problems with memory have linux users.

          • cousin333

            “I am speaking as a general rule. That is your Opera. One instance. There are people complaining that it leaks.”

            And there are people saying that it doesn’t. You base your general rule on 10+ people complaining a forum that is reserved for complains? If Opera leaks that must be an error, that should be solved. Those are rare cases or rare configurations. For me, the consumption is somewhere between 200 and 400MB almost constantly, as Opera uses the RAM dynamically (I have 3GBs). Complaining about snapshots leaking memory is just stupid, use stable versions then.

            “gestures should be extensions.”

            Hell no! Even if Opera opens up now a bit, it is still no Firefox, which is good. Opera meant to be an all-in-one suite, covering almost every basic functions and more. Extensions are for the so called ‘long tail’ which means features usually for a small group of users only.

        • nvm

          Opera small company – no money for advertising

          Opera is approaching 1000 employees or something. And they are doing advertising. In fact, they have done several viral marketing stunts that have given them millions of hits on sites like YouTube. You think “marketing” only means expensive billboards (which they have also done).

      • nobody

        opera has ZERO posibilities to EXTEND. you confuse EXTENDING (like adding NEW things – try cooliris or even tabmixplus EXTENSIONS) with customizations. like doing the same thing in a little differently colored way. opera extensions are in fact what was there for long time – widgets, with different chrome. and they CANNOT add anything NEW to opera. you still cant tell what color is the pixel under the mouse cursor. you still cannot change how opera wraps its tabs.
        and chrome extensions CAN (https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/amigcgbheognjmfkaieeeadojiibgbdp) such stuff, opera cant.

        calling manual edit of .ini files customization in 2010 is pathetic. and editing menus REQUIRES you to close opera before doing it! unite is a dead technology. itsbeen 3months without any new unite app. no wonder why opera stopped releasing unite apps with opera – even they see that it flopped SO VERY FU*KING BADLY!

        MEMORY. opera did some profiling in one of the previous snapshots. first: opera ‘not used features’ in fact are used (any good programmer knew that for years, but they had to lie to users) and they take both time and memory. so maybe remove this unite crap, widget crap, chat crap etc? chrome multiprocess nature is an option and not sharing memory has its cost. but chrome does not take hours to close when left to run for two days. opera DOES! it is sloppy codding on opera side. dont believe – go to that thread on desktopteam and see what people posted there.

        shit marketing does not require commenting. it is fact, they are almost never present in any comparisons (betanews being an exception) they always fail high profile tech-demos (and they blame others! instead of accepting underdog position and buying in!)

        their policy of banning anyone who does not play fanboi game on their forums sure did made them a lot of friends in the press.

        it is their fault that their company is small, it is their fault that they burn their money on opera mini servers instead on advertising, it is their fault that they did useless features in the past instead of following the crowd. it is their fault that their browser is stagnant in marketshare and in recognition for 10 years now. but youll never hear they admiting ‘we screwed’. no.. it will always be ‘weak economy’ or ‘pink unicorns’

        oh and btw – it is their fault webdevelopers do not check how opera handles their webpages, Dragonfly is still a total utter crap. i really wonder why people who lead this pos project are still doing it..

        • Dante

          “Opera has ZERO posibilities to EXTEND. you confuse EXTENDING (like adding NEW things – try cooliris or even tabmixplus EXTENSIONS) with customizations.”
          Cooliris widget: http://widgets.opera.com/widget/17112/
          New things? BlockIt Unite applications or userJS or new extension for easy blocking object, scripts and elements on page.
          ExtraDownloadLinks is extend of Links panel for links for elements.
          PowerDrag extend Opera of possibility change size of input elements or pictures
          TextSize extend Opera of possibility separate change size of text on page
          Autocomplete extend Opera of possibility save data from input boxes
          UserJS manager Unite manager extend Opera of possibility easy install and manage userJS

          “calling manual edit of .ini files customization in 2010 is pathetic. and editing menus REQUIRES you to close opera before doing it! unite is a dead technology.”
          FAIL. Use dead Unite technology – Opera Action Manager and you can change toolbar, menu, keyboard and mouse WITHOUT RESTART.
          I can edit Opera ini files and style files and don`t need restart Opera.

          “Opera extensions are in fact what was there for long time – widgets, with different chrome. and they CANNOT add anything NEW to opera.”
          FAIL. Widgets are standalone applications and Extensions are integrated to browser.
          Anything NEW? NoADS add to Opera possibility blocking scripts, elements and advertisement with possibility download filters.
          Readability add to Opera Safari function and more extensions come when extension API specification will be complete.
          Wait for MoreTabs extension or other JS extension like NotScript conversion from Chrome.

          • nobody

            colliris widget is a flash app.. any browser can use it, same with readability bookmarklet (that readability provided itself in the first place!)

            blockIT etc apps are new UI for opera built-in resource/content blocker. nothing NEW here, just customization of what already exists

            powerDrag is nothing more than already present (in any browser) ability to manipulate DOM (el.style.height = x; el.style.width = y;..)

            textSize is a css snippet, already nothing new.

            i do not believe that you can edit opera ini files and have their effect seen immediatelly, some yes, all – NO. there are settings that REQUIRE restart – both in opera:config and in other menus. unite is just a GUI for it (bad GUI..).

            extensions ARE widgets. but with ‘external’ crap reverted like they were in version 10.50 and with a tie to opera gui.

            and they re-do already existing stuff with different (better and much needed) GUI. they are welcome, but they are VERY limited.

            i;d like them to fix the cookie handling in opera, to change how bookmarks are handled (right click menu!) and change tab handling/wrapping. these will not happen with widgets renamed as extensions.

          • Ichann

            If extensions are stand alone application, then why do I need Opera installed to use them?

            Widgets to me is Firefoxes prism, Chromes application shortcut and IE’s pin tabs.

            They are a feature of thr browser.

            The extension API at this point is pretty shallow (Or so they say). That No Ads extension is a good first step but really needs some TLC

          • nvm

            Extensions aren’t standalone. Widgets are.

            Widgets are not browser features. They are standalone applications.

        • nvm

          MEMORY

          Ignorance is bliss

          it is their fault that their company is small

          Small? It’s the biggest browser team in the world, AFAIK.

          it is their fault that they burn their money on opera mini servers instead on advertising

          What makes you think Opera isn’t doing advertising, and why would they stop making a wildly successful product?

          it is their fault that their browser is stagnant in marketshare and in recognition for 10 years now

          Opera removed the ads 5 years ago. The user base doubles every two years or so. Hardly stagnant.

          • nobody

            back from your leave paid my.opera troll?

            another 5cents earned for this delightful post?

            “. The user base doubles every two years or so. Hardly stagnant.”

            user base grows (not lately), but marketshare is still where it was, around 2-3%. and theyd be better of spending their money trying to improve it than paying you to troll the net, prd3 from my.opera.com

  • Plemm

    Are these Worldwide market share or only the US or only European market shares?

    • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

      Worldwide.

    • Mancho

      These are worldwide, but don’t put too much faith in the numbers. They’re not particularly valid. What’s more meaningful is the trends. Not the month to month changes, but overall trends. IE and Firefox are losing market, chrome and safari are gaining, and Opera and others are fairly stagnant.

    • nvm

      These numbers are mainly for North America. Net Applications even admitted to that.

      But you never see anyone mention that fact.

      • Ichann

        source or bull.

        • nvm

          Go away, nobbie.

          • Ichann

            so it was bull. Hello MR. PURDI

            Nice to see your true colours.

          • nobody

            problem with purdi is that he is most certainly PAID by opera to ‘spread the faith’.. ive found him on many tech forums under strange names.

            his language will always reveal his identity. his fav is ‘bigot’ ‘ignorant’ and ‘clueless’ and his particular love to speak in name of everybody..

          • max1c

            Ya he most certainly gets paid by Opera. Thats one of reasons why his original account got banned from My.Opera/cummunity for offensive language…

          • nobody

            and in 650+ employee company every my.opera moderator know all opera employees.. mistakes happen.

            given what prd3 is allowed to do compared to what others get banned for is rather telling.

        • micah

          Obnoxius smelly Troll go back to your cave & stay there.

          • Ichann

            Wow. Nice accounts there.

            May I ask where you are from?

  • Roberto Lo Giacco

    If this report is based on standard http requests logs then the absolute values reported for IE are doubled because of a fault “By Design” in the IE cache implementation: each time IE founds an image or other resource it can have in it’s own cache it DOES NOT issue an HEAD http request to check the cache validity but instead it starts a new GET which will be dropped after a few bytes are transferred. And it does so even if the last GET was issued a few seconds ago!

    As a consequence all common methods to establish the user agent frequency are invalidated by microsoft web browsers. To have a more accurate estimation we should divide AT LEAST by 2 the raw number referring to IE and subtract that number from the total number of requests received.

    The Google Analytics solution provides a more accurate analysis as IE does not executes the same script multiple times.

    • Roberto Lo Giacco

      Based on my calculations taking count of the “By Design” IE flaw, these are a more accurate estimate of browser market share:

      IE 42,03%
      FFox 32,42%
      Chrome 12,07%
      Safari 7,61%
      Opera 3,25%
      Other 2,63%

    • nobody

      i find this revelation highly dubious. any high profile site confirms it?

      nowadays most usage metrics are done with var img = new Image() and img.src=collector+”?RANDOM=UNREPETEABLE STRING with data” and this as such cannot be cached so entire point about caching is irrelevant

      do you have a fiddler log with what you are describing here to show us that this happens with statcounter and netapplication trackers? GA uses the same way btw.

  • Not my true name

    Opera fanboys are the worst of its kind. Absolutely ignorant.

    • nvm

      Opera fanboys are nothing compared to Firefox fanboys. Nobbie AKA Ichann AKA you is a perfect example.

  • senate

    Another thing to keep in mind is that many Firefox users use NoScript, AdBlock Plus, or any of the other content blocking extensions which affect tracking methods that use JS, Flash, 1px gifs, etc. Of course, other browsers have similar blocking tools but it doesn’t seem like those users are into extensions as much as Firefox users (yet) and there’s not as extensive APIs for those other browsers (Chrome seems to come the closest but still far away from the control Mozilla extensions can have over the browser.)

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